by Dan Mayland
When flames had begun to creep out of the hole, Mark had flipped open his phone and dialed the international number for emergency.
Now, having been transferred to a local police dispatcher, he said he wanted to report a fire coming from the roof of a church on Route D928. “It’s the Eglise Saint-Martin. And if someone doesn’t get here quick, it’s going to take down the whole roof.”
Minutes later, the fire was roaring loudly and, despite being twenty feet above it in the stone bell tower, Mark could feel its heat. He imagined what the Iranians inside the church must be thinking. They must be getting a little frantic by now, unsure of whether to stay where they were or to wait outside, potentially exposing themselves. It didn’t really matter, he decided—when the cops and firemen arrived they’d have to leave.
Soon after a portion of the roof collapsed into the church, Mark heard sirens in the distance.
A police car pulled up and the gendarme got out and ordered a few locals who’d gathered in front of the church to step back. A minute later a fire truck pulled up, sirens blaring. Four firemen jumped out. Mark stood up.
“I’ll go first,” he said to Daria.
“I’ll be right on your heels.”
Below he hoped Decker was already on the move, either disarming the Iranians if they were still in the church, or hightailing it to the farmhouse if the coast was clear.
He descended the circular steps as quietly as he could, silently choking on the smoke that was making its way up the tower. When he reached the last step he grabbed the ladder that he’d pulled up through the stairway’s central chute, quickly lowered it to the floor, and slid down it as if it were a fireman’s pole. When he hit the ground he rolled into the church then sprinted to a marble pillar halfway between the altar and the rear exit. He flattened himself against it. A second later Daria was at his side.
If Decker had managed to take out the two guys inside the church, Mark figured he and Daria could be at the farmhouse within a couple minutes. The men guarding Minabi would be distracted by the fire and vulnerable.
In front of him a few piles of collapsed ceiling timbers were burning, while thirty feet above them the fire continued to rage, sucking so much air into the church now that Mark felt a strong breeze on the back of his neck. Soon the whole ceiling would collapse.
He peered out from behind the marble pillar, searching for Decker, but he couldn’t see any sign of him. The rear exit was a fifty-foot sprint away, underneath a crucifix-shaped collection of bolts in the wall.
He stepped out from behind the pillar and began to run. Then he felt his head snap to the side. As his legs collapsed, he was overwhelmed by the sensation that he’d stumbled into a bottomless pit.
Through the flickering smoke-filled gloom, Daria saw a black shadow slam Mark’s head into a stone wall.
On the opposite side of the church, the side that faced the road, police lights flashed wildly and a gendarme pushed people back from the chain-link fence. Daria figured she could be out on the street in a matter of seconds. The police might try to detain her, but she’d figure out a way to ditch them.
She clenched her fists, poised to run to safety.
Dammit, Mark!
Screw him, she thought. She’d told him not to get involved. She’d warned him. He’d pushed himself on her anyway, for $2,000 a day.
She turned toward the flashing police lights. Firemen were rolling out a hose. In the confusion, she might even be able to blend into the crowd.
This was your fault, Mark! Your plan!
At Daria’s feet lay a narrow four-foot-long board smoldering among the ceiling debris. She grasped the end that had gone untouched by the fire. It was heavy, made of oak she guessed. The blackened end had a cluster of rusty old nails sticking out of it.
She eyed the potential safety of the street one last time. Then she turned toward where she’d last seen Mark and began to run after him.
Mark regained consciousness as he was being dragged through a gap in the chain-link fence outside the church. He heard voices, one of them a woman’s—Daria, he thought—and cries of pain.
He tried to flip on his stomach and grab his attacker’s legs, but as soon as he landed a hand on the man’s thigh, a knee rammed him in the temple. When he came to again, his hands were being bound behind his back with plastic FlexiCuffs and he lay at the edge of a forest.
He heard distant shouting coming from the church, which was now just a tiny glow barely visible through the trees.
“Martinez?” called a voice from the darkness.
“Yes, sir.”
The guy named Martinez was maybe six feet tall with a goatee. His thick forehead was covered with blood that was dripping out from a knot of puncture wounds above his right eye. He wore loose brown pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, a radio headset, and a night-vision monocle. His right hand gripped a pistol and he was breathing heavily.
“What happened? I heard shooting.”
“I’ve apprehended one of the subjects.”
A tall barrel-chested man, with a partially bald head and silver temple hair that stood out in the darkness, emerged from behind the black shape of a car. He wasn’t wearing night-vision equipment and he held only a small hand radio. He looked at Mark and grimaced.
To Martinez he said, “Where’s Daria Buckingham?”
“Someone else was in the church that we didn’t know about. He’s fucking with everything. One of the Iranians is down, his weapon’s been taken.”
“Answer my question.”
“The bitch came after me. I took her down—”
“She wasn’t supposed to be harmed!”
“I had to defend myself, sir. She’ll live.”
“Davis was supposed to stay on her!”
“He got ambushed and lost his weapon. One of the Iranians might have also got hit. Whoever’s out there knows what they’re doing.”
Mark’s head was suddenly yanked back so hard he thought his neck was going to snap.
“Who are we dealing with?” asked Martinez.
Mark didn’t answer.
The older man said, “I’ll watch this punk. You’ve got to go back for Buckingham! Now!”
“There are firefighters and cops out there. I can try to avoid them, but I’m telling you, before I go after Buckingham I need to take out the guy who—”
A shot rang out. Martinez clutched his thigh, fell to the ground, and fired into the trees.
A second later, Decker came up from behind and smashed the butt of his pistol into Martinez’s face five times, rapid-fire. Then he tackled the old guy into a tree, knocking the wind out of him.
Decker cut Mark’s hands free with a knife and handed him Martinez’s pistol. “Cover them,” he whispered, then he retrieved a couple of plastic FlexiCuffs from Martinez’s back pocket and used them to secure both of his prisoners’ hands.
Martinez was unconscious. The older man was groaning.
Mark’s head was wobbly on his neck and throbbing so much it felt as though his skull were going to split open. He didn’t know if he could stand. “You gotta go back for Daria.”
“The Iranians just bagged her. I was going for you, I couldn’t stop them.”
“Is she alive?”
“I think.” He added, “I took down one of the guys who was on you—he’s tied up just outside the church, the cops have probably found him by now—and I was going for the second when I realized there were more people out there. I don’t know how many. It’s a cluster, man.”
“Get Daria back,” said Mark.
The older man struggled to pull himself up to his knees. With great urgency he said, “My name is Henry Amato. I work for the National Security Council.”
Mark stumbled a bit as he stood up. He recognized the name.
“It’s a rebel Iranian unit that has Daria,” said Amato. “If you want to get her back, you’ll release me.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Your name is Mark Sava,” said A
mato, frantic but whispering. “You work for the CIA. I know why you’re here.”
Decker bent down and removed Martinez’s night-vision monocle. He bound Martinez’s ankles with FlexiCuffs and secured his hands, which were already bound behind his back, to his ankles. “I’m going for her,” Decker said to Mark.
“I’ll go with you.”
“Screw that. There’s a downed tree about a hundred yards south of here.” Decker pointed with his finger. “Near the base of it is a hole where the roots got ripped up. I hid up there today. Wait for me there.”
Decker ran off. Mark heard some voices shouting in the distance, but they were speaking French. More firefighters he determined. He took a deep breath, trying to get a handle on the pounding in his head, then yanked Amato to a standing position. The air smelled of smoke.
“Get your hands off me,” said Amato.
“I said keep your voice down.” Mark wasn’t sure if his vision was blurry because of the darkness or because of the pounding he’d taken. He looked at Martinez. The man was still unconscious, or maybe dead. Mark decided to leave him.
“I need my radio,” said Amato. “I can help get Daria back.”
Mark took his pistol, which he’d been pointing at Amato’s back, and jabbed the barrel into the base of Amato’s skull. “Start walking.”
“Did you hear me? I can help secure her release! The Iranians will listen to me.”
“This rebel unit, they the same group of guys who tried to take me and Daria out in Dubai?”
“It’s a complicated situation.”
“I’ll bet.”
“The Iranians were trying to capture you and Daria tonight and then take you both to the house where Minabi’s being held—to be interrogated. So help me God, I was trying to stop them.”
“So help me God I think you’re full of shit.”
“Then you’re a fool. And there isn’t a chance they’ll bring Daria to the house now. We have to find out where they’re taking her before it’s too late.”
“A fool?”
“We’re wasting time!”
“Who all is out there?”
“Four Iranians and the two men I brought.” Amato added, “My guys were here to help you and Daria. Under my orders. Your friend ruined everything. He attacked the good guys.”
Mark wasn’t buying it. The pounding in his head stood as a testament to the fact that Amato’s men hadn’t been there just to mount a rescue. But if Amato had a connection to the Iranians, he’d find out what that connection was.
“Get your radio.”
Amato hunted on the ground until he found it.
Mark raised his gun. “Any talk of our location and you’re dead.”
Amato fiddled with the channels and then depressed the send button. “This is Partner, do you copy?” He waited a moment. When there was no response he tried again, and again there was no response.
He switched to another channel, and then another.
They were in an open, unprotected area of the forest. Eventually Mark took the radio back and turned it off. “Walk,” he said.
Amato went where he was told to go, but he was half tempted to turn around and fight so that he could start searching the woods for Daria on his own. Mark Sava was a slight, unimpressive man and Amato had little doubt that, despite being nearly twenty years older, he could wring Sava’s neck if he had to.
“Let me try the radio again,” he said.
“Keep walking.”
“Do you believe in God, Sava?” Amato could see the church burning through the trees. Part of him wondered whether he’d already descended into hell and just didn’t know it yet.
“Faster.”
“I’ll take that as a no. I know your type.”
Sava was a weasel of a man who was used to lying and sneaking and living off his guile, thought Amato. Which is to say he was typical Agency and not to be trusted with Daria’s life. He had to get Sava out of the way.
“You can take that as an order to walk faster.”
“Well, I believe in God. And I believe that my God will send me to hell if I don’t do everything I can to save Daria. Let me try the radio again.”
“Not yet.”
Nearly shouting, Amato said, “I refuse to—”
Amato felt a pain shoot from the top of his head, down into his neck, and then hit his legs so hard that they crumpled underneath him. Then Sava struck him again, just below his ear, in the sensitive area where his skull connected to his neck. He slumped to the ground.
“This is the last time I’m going to tell you, old man—”
The feel of Sava’s chin stubble scratching his neck, and Sava’s hot breath in his ear, was absolutely revolting.
“—keep your fucking voice down.”
Mark found Decker’s hole up on a little ridge and pushed Amato down into it. The massive root ball of a downed oak tree formed a natural earthen wall in back of the hole and Decker had arranged a screen of downed branches in front. Mark imagined that Decker would have had a view of both the church, which was still visible as it burned, and the farmhouse, which was now swallowed by the night.
His head still throbbed but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He handed the radio to Amato and for the next minute Amato switched from channel to channel, looking increasingly panicked as he tried to get the Iranians to respond.
Eventually Mark said, “You’re wearing a suit.” Amato looked completely out of place in the middle of the woods. And he hadn’t shaved in a long time.
“I left in a hurry.”
“From the States?”
“Direct from Washington.”
“So you could be here when we were captured?”
“Or soon after.”
“Why?”
“That’s also complicated. For the love of God,” said Amato, trying the radio again. There was still no response.
“Want to tell me what the National Security Council is doing running black ops in France, in partnership with a bunch of Iranian thugs?”
Instead of answering, Amato asked, “Will your man find Daria?”
“I have no idea.”
Mark peered above the fallen tree. Fire trucks were dousing the church with jets of water that arced high into the sky. A malevolent black plume of smoke twisted up from the bell tower. He listened but he couldn’t hear any gunshots. He couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.
Pointing his gun at Amato, he said, “Listen, I’ve had it with this shit. Either you tell me what’s going on or I’m gonna decide you’re useless to me and shoot you right here. I’ve dealt with too many lies over the past few days. I’m done with it.”
“After we find Daria.”
“Now.”
Amato stared at Mark for a moment, as though trying to gauge whether he was bluffing. “The National Security Council’s trying to take down the regime in Iran.”
“How?”
“By supporting a coup by the Revolutionary Guard.”
“And how the hell did the NSC and Revolutionary Guard wind up in bed together? No, don’t tell me. The Doha Group.”
“We offered the generals some big money deals. Pretty soon the top guy wanted in.”
“Aryanpur?”
“Yeah.”
Mark was genuinely surprised. And a little impressed. General Ali Aryanpur was the head of the Revolutionary Guard, the number-two man in Iran.
“He know he was dealing with the NSC?”
“Not until his hands were already plenty dirty. Understand, this is happening at the same time we’re collecting some disturbing intel from the MEK.”
“Minabi told you about the pipeline to China.”
“And the defense agreement with China,” added Amato.
“And the enriched uranium.”
“She said she’d stolen some of it and did we want to buy it.”
“Which you did. For forty million bucks, the price Holgan paid for the Jetstar plane that flew into Dubai.”
> “The deal was we’d give the uranium to the IAEA when we got done analyzing its provenance, but the problem was we still had to figure out how to deal with China. We couldn’t let all the deals they’d cut with Iran stand, but with Khorasani in power…”
“I don’t know that I want to hear this,” said Mark. There were way too many moving pieces here. Far too many to control. It was crazy for Amato or anyone else to have tried.
“Everyone had been hoping the Green movement would topple the regime from within, but it’s clear they’re done. They have no leader, no real power. The only realistic alternative to Khorasani is Aryanpur. He was in a power struggle with Khorasani before we even approached him, he was with Khomeini in the revolution, and he’s had some religious training, enough to be accepted as Supreme Leader at least…”
Amato paused again. Mark looked at his watch. Three minutes had passed. He could still hear the distant shouts of firemen.
“We made a deal with Aryanpur. If he seized power, we agreed to drop all trade restrictions and invest heavily in an oil pipeline, to be built by the Revolutionary Guard, from the Caspian Sea, across Iran, to the Persian Gulf. It’s the shortest way, it’s the way that always made sense.
“In return Aryanpur agreed to get rid of Iran’s nuclear program and drop the China pipeline and defense agreement. Stopping the pipeline was a no-brainer. That was why he’d agreed to meet with us in the first place, because Khorasani had sold the construction rights to the Chinese, cutting him out.
“Anyway, the deal was the easy part. The hard part was figuring out how to get rid of Khorasani. And that’s where the enriched uranium came in.”
Mark just shook his head as Amato revealed that an American Intelligence Support Activities team was about to stage a bungled nuclear attack on a US aircraft carrier and that an elite Qods Force unit, controlled by Khorasani, was being set up to take the blame.
“Three days ago, Aryanpur leaked that Khorasani had this rogue nuclear unit on his hands. The army has been going ballistic ever since because they’re terrified of a retaliatory attack.”